52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy – Life Experiences

Week 5 – Life Experiences: Sometimes the challenges in life provide the best learning experiences. Can you find an example of this in your own family tree? Which brick wall ancestor are you most thankful for, and how did that person shape your family history experience?

This challenge runs from Sunday, January 29, 2012 through Saturday, February 3, 2012.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

Sorry for running late on this, but it’s been a long, busy couple of days. Am finally catching up.

Being a RootsTech 2012, in Salt Lake City, was a real boost for me. The best part of the trip was to be able to spend time with Genea-Bloggers. I didn’t try to keep count as to how many of the 90+ Genea-Bloggers who were there that I met, but I think I met most of them. What an awesome group.

I have never been a writer, so this blogging “stuff” is out of my league. However, there are a couple of folks in my family tree who were writers, perhaps not by trade, but did a lot of writing.

My Great-Grandfather, Samuel Worthington, was one of them. I have copies of letters that he wrote “home” during the Civil War. Apparently, he also was a writer for his unit in the Civil War and was published in Ohio.

The second writer, was McHenry Howard. A little distant relative, but his writings provided a lot of detail for the 2nd Maryland Regiment (CSA), again for the Civil War. His writings gave detailed information on that regiment that put in perspective what a soldier’s life was like during that conflict.

But the real hero, for me, was my grandfather’s brother, Josiah Wistar Worthington, Col. V.C., U.S.A. His stories and letters are now in book format Hell and Beyond, a Diary of War and Captivity, Compiled and Edited by Frances Worthington Lipe.

This book is full of Uncle Wistar’s letters “home” telling his story of his captivity during the 2nd World War. He had been captured twice, and the poems, in the letters, helped communicate his experience without those letters being destroyed because of the content of them.

These three writers, brought home, their experience of their war to those their families. My experience of “war” was sent home in the form of audio tapes that I had sent home while I was in Vietnam. One of these days, I’ll have to get them put into digital format.

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2 Responses to 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy – Life Experiences

Sounds like you were born to write or, at the least, to “record” :) Now, at the risk of sounding like a nag, can you please put at the top of your priority list changing “one of these days” into a definite date i.e. 1st March 2012? I worry about the stability of the audio tapes and the loss of your heritage. Even if the tape is fine, how much longer will we have the machines in good working order to play them? Here’s some Library of Congress tips on preservation. http://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/record.html I’ll stop nagging now ;)

PS I’m really good at giving advice – not necessarily following it ! (Thinks to self, where are those audio recordings I have???)

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About this Blog

The purpose of this Blog has changed over time. What started out to be an online version of some old Worthington Descendant Newsletters.
It has become a way to journal about my adventure into Family History, sometimes called Genealogy.
The change for me is more about finding out the stories behind the names and dates that I find about the people I find in my research.